SATURDAY 19th MARCH - THE DRONGO CONTINUES!
A breakfast of champions prepared by my darling Stacy of the Bellbird Lodge, Taurangi, fuelled me finally forward again. Ive been holed up in Taurangi all week trying to kick a flu I managed to pick up so its been another few days of incessant feeding and Hollywood therapy. Stacy, the lodge manager and my new best friend, has been cooking for me all week so I made sure her mothering was rewarded with a mention in the local paper with which I had an interview yesterday. Since my last entry I have seen the other articles about me that were printed and one of them makes me sound like a right drongo by quoting me rather too directly saying the charity, Temwenani, deals with, "AIDS awareness and that sort of thing." Lazy old reporter, he could have at least paraphrased to make me sound vaguely like I knew what I was talking about! This slur on my name certainly prompted me to be a little more articulate in my most recent interview, however, the reporter seemed more interested in my painting of the Bellbird's bathroom than my walk. They will obviously print any old crap so hopefully the rest of my muddled mutterings will make the grade.
 
Stuffed like a Christmas turkey and after a sad goodbye, I rolled my way up the Tongariro river, the river which gives Taurangi its title of "The trout fishing capital of the world." Every winter the trout from Lake Taupo migrate up the Tongariro's bolder strewn bed while trying to avoid the wader clad army of fly fishermen. Despite it being early Autumn a few chancers dotted the waters in the vain hope that there were some seasonally confused fish around. My days walk followed the river for a few hours before casting me out onto highway 1 untill I hit the road running above the Tongariro Crossing. My aim was to reach the Ketatahi carpark, at the end of the crossing, where I was meeting a friend Ian who was joining me for the pass the following day.
 
The Tongariro Crossing is one of NZ's great walks and I have heard from many that it is one of the most spectacular of them. The corssing takes one over the top of a volcano field strewn with crators and crator lakes and just South of it lies Mt Ruepehu, which erupted last in 1996, so the whole area is still extremely active. As I approached the and of the track I could see steam rising from vents in the mountain side. It was going to be a great day tomorrow and the weather was shaping up to be near perfect. I was just praying as I sighted the carpark that the sprain I seemed to be developing at the top of my right thigh wasn't going to hamper the following days efforts.
 
I was going to be doing the crossing in the correct direction (S - N) and then start South again, from the start of the track, the day after. Tonight would be spent at a ski lodge that Ian is a member of and as I waited for Ian to arrive to pick me up I prayed the lodge had a bath to give my sprain a helping hand to recovery.


SUNDAY 20th MARCH - STRAINED EFFORTS
Two weeks off and all it takes is a gentle 25km walk to lump me with a painful grion sprain. Just when i'm eager to be making headway and just when I actually have arranged some company, my body packs in. Ian went and did the crossing without me as it was obvious when I limped into the kitchen that I wasn't going to be accompanying him. When its nice weather and all you want to be doing is walking its incredible frustrating to barely be able to walk at all. No point moping though and as Ian had left me the keys to his car I decided to drive up the side of Ruepehu and investigate where I would be walking through once I was upwardly mobile again. It was a rare chance to be able to scope out tracks and terrain before reaching them and I had a fantastic taster of the spectacular mountain scenery that I will be coming through. This little inferm period is just going to be time for my exited anticipation of the coming tramp to grow and grow. I suppose I am actually quite lucky I didn't injure myself half way round the mountain as I would have had to limp out or in a worse case scenario, be airlifted out. On the flip side, hwoever, that could be the only way i'm going to make any headlines out here. "Sponsored walker falls short" or "Charity walker raises alarm." There is no such thing as bad publicity afterall!
 

WEDNESDAY 23rd MARCH - HAPPY CROSSING
Well, I found myself limping back to the Bellbird as it was obvious my leg wasn't going to come good in time to do the crossing before Ian had to return to Auckland. First it was just a small break, then the flu and now a damn sprained groin has stranded me in the Bellbird. It could just be a series of bad luck or just a collection of psycho-sematic excuses to spend more time with sweet Stacy in the lodge that is starting to feel like home. Those spitefull roots have really gone all out this time to keep me rooted. I'm even baking cakes every night. Its just too comfy here, however, I am getting a bit worried about the next ailment my body is going to majic up to keep me from leaving.
 
Today, finally I felt confident enough in my ailing limbs to attempt the crossing although I wasn't confident enough to do it with my pack and continue South afterwards. Instead I persuaded Stacy to desert her lodge responsibilities for the day and she blagged us onto a Tongariro Crossing shuttle bus. It was a beautiful morning but there were clouds threatening to descend and, according to the bus drivers pronouncement over the tannoy, the weather was going to pack up early afternoon and grace us with gales and electrical storms. "Get up there, enjoy the views and then get straight back down!" he instructed us as we disembarked onto the tussocked moutain side. Sounded simple enough. All I wanted to do was get up to the top before the storm descended swamped the photo opportunities. I had been through other peoples photo sequences of their crossings and had almost picked up repetetive strain injury from pressing the forward button. It was going to be a stunning walk and being prone to a bit of camera happy snapping myself I secured mine to my belt for easy access.
 
It was a gentle start along the tussock and volcanic rock strewn valley floor and as we neared the bottom of what is known as 'The Devil's Staircase", Mt Ngauruhoe loomed over us, wisps of cloud clinging to its crator peak. "The Devil's Staircase", a rough and rocky ascent straingt up the West side of the range, was going to be the test for my sprain but I was glad to find it fairly easy with only the odd little twinge. At the top the sheer sided valley we had just come up laid itself out far below and we found ourselves walking across a huge pancace flat plain covered in chunks of rock. Bizarre is the only way to describe the scenery while crossing the volcanic plateau and as we skirted Mt Ngauruhoe's, better known as Mt Doom, flanks I could almost imaging a blackened sky sillouetted by the fire dance of molten lava exploding from its craggy heights. The whole area was very much still active and as Stacy and I fought over who was going to be upwind we joked over how our boiled egg breakfast was aiding our prelude to the sulphur clouds we were about to go through.
 
Once over the plain we followed a saddle which formed the edge of the Red Crator. The name doesn't quite describe this deep terracotta coloured crator marred by jagged fissures which closely resembled, and this wasn't my observation, female genetalia. At the top of the saddle the three glimmering jewels of the emerald lakes shone up at us from below as we control slid our waydown the scree to basque in their serene beauty. Stacey, on purpose of course, used the backside descend method briefly but quickly decided the wear on her trousers would be too great. The colour of these small lakes is so vivid that it looks as though they have been dyed and add in the mountain panoramic and the sulphur incenced steam and you have the whole surreal picture.
 
Photos just fail to grasp this bizarre moonscape but my trigger finger was still feeling the strain of trying. We finally dragged ourselves away from the mesmerising waters abd headed through the basalt covered landscape over to the Blue lake where we chose a tussock each and munched our curds and whey. The hords were mostly behind us and we had been lucky to have avoided them so far but after a while out tranquility was trampled by the droves of keen day trippers copying our snack spot. The clouds had also caught up and we got dramatic views of them spilling over the mountains surrounding us, engulfing us and then clearing before the next obscuring of the heavens.
 
The walk down to our pick up point was hilarious as we joked, laughed, ridiculed and all that type of carry on. Our frivolities culminated in a giggle fit, water out the nose incident at the busy hut where everyone had stopped for a rest. No one seemed to be having as much fun as us so we left them to their musings and headed for home. All the streams we passed on the way down were cloudy and apparently were full of arsenic and heavy metals. There was "Do Not Drink" signs everywhere but I can't imagine anyone wanting to fill up from the creamy water. Our bus was waiting at the car park along with hundreds of people whe obviously took the drivers advice a bit too seriously. I took a quick chance to read about the national park on the info boards and this is what I learnt. In 1887, thr Paramount chief of the Tauharetoa people, Te Heuheu Tukino IV, donated the peaks of Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruepehu to the nation. It was the forst gift of its kind ever made by an indidgenous people and the national park created was only the fourth of its kind in the world. The gift, however, wasn't motivated by the pure generosity that the sign implied. The chief actually donated the land to prevent it being split up by warring Maori tribes and colonial farmers wanting grazing space on the foothills. He saw his only option as donating it all to the government so it could be protected and conserved for all.
 
On the way back I swallowed my nerves and stood up at the front of the bus with the microphone and appealed for spare change before passing Stacy's cap around the seats. The generous lot gave up $16 of their hard earned dollars and all I had to give up was my fear of making a fool of myself and a few gallons of adrenalin. A worthy exchange.

The Red Crator (No Sniggering!)		Mt Doom
The Crossing		The Emerald Lakes